Literary Theory and Comparative Literature: Methods and Concepts
What the exam tests
Items test Western and Indian theoretical concepts and the methods of comparing literatures across languages.
Core concepts
Mimesis (Plato, Aristotle), catharsis, the sublime (Longinus), rasa and dhvani, vakrokti, auchitya. Modern theory: formalism and defamiliarization (Shklovsky), New Criticism and its intentional and affective fallacies, structuralism (Saussure, Jakobson), post-structuralism (Derrida), reader-response, and cultural studies.
Comparative method
Comparative literature studies across linguistic and national boundaries using influence, analogy, reception, and translation studies. Goethe's Weltliteratur is a reference point, as are Indian comparative aesthetics pairing rasa with catharsis and dhvani with suggestion. The comparison must be systematic, not merely juxtapositional.
Worked example
A question asks whether comparing Kalidasa's Shakuntala with Goethe's Faust counts as comparative literature. Yes, if the comparison is cross-linguistic and examines genre, reception, or theme systematically; merely listing both is not. The reasoning is method, not proximity of names.
Traps
Comparative literature is not any comparison; theory is not a checklist of names; rasa is not identical to catharsis, since one is aesthetic relish and the other purgation; and world literature is not a fixed canon. Don't align vakrokti with dhvani as if they were the same school.